Journal
BRAIN IMAGING AND BEHAVIOR
Volume 14, Issue 6, Pages 2097-2106Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11682-019-00159-8
Keywords
Crohn's disease; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Functional connectivity; Amygdala
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81771918, 81471738]
- National Basic Research Programof China [2015CB856403]
- National Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province [2017JM6051]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [JB181204]
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Crohn's disease (CD), a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, involved in brain structural and functional changes, including the amygdala. Amygdala is a key structure in the limbic system and its related circuits are implicated in processing of emotion, pain and sensory. However, limited study of the amygdala is elucidated in CD. This study mainly investigated altered functional connectivity (FC) of the amygdala in CD patients during resting-state. Magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 42 CD patients and 35 healthy controls (HCs). Whole amygdala bilaterally were selected as regions of interest (ROIs). Voxel-based morphometry and FC methods were applied to investigate the differences of structure or intrinsic connectivity of the amygdala between the two groups, separately. Pearson correlations were performed to explore relationships between the clinical characteristics and neuroimaging findings in CD patients. Based on the whole amygdala bilaterally as ROIs, compared with HCs, CD patients showed no statistical differences of grey matter destiny but exhibited decreased FC between the amygdala and insula, parahippocampus, as well as anterior middle cingulate cortex/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. CD patients had negative correlation between the disease duration and amygdala-insula connectivity. In the patient group, patients with higher anxiety or depression scores revealed increased FC of the amygdala with thalamus and orbitofrontal cortex. Our results reveal that aberrant FC of the amygdala may be involved in processing of visceral pain and sensation, and emotion in CD. These findings may further enhance the understanding of neural mechanisms of CD.
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